Say It Ain’t So, Lance Gooden and Joe Straus!

By Jan Shedd

So what is the real story on Lance Gooden?

Photo courtesy of Stop Lance Gooden click photo for more info!

“Keep in mind while reading this that our representative in the Texas House, Lance Gooden, won’t tell us where he lives, where he works, or what he does for a living, but he will proudly proclaim his unwavering support for Joe Straus.

Some of you might say, “But Lance says he lives in Terrell.” Wrong. He owns a vacant house in Terrell. “But Lance says he works in District 4.” No, he hasn’t told us where he works. “But he says he’s an insurance consultant for energy and energy related companies.” Then why does he not have a state issued insurance license? And if he does , where is it? District 4 voters have a right and responsibility to ask these questions, and Gooden has a duty to answer. If he wants to live a private life, he shouldn’t run for public office.

BTW, someone is spreading rumors that Empower Texans supports the state monkeying with police and firefighter pensions, specifically to convert them to 401Ks, and that’s why ET has endorsed Stuart Spitzer. I will leave it to my readers to determine where these rumors are coming from, but I will tell you that this charge is absolutely, 100% FALSE.”

Earlier today I got news of a fundraiser that will take place next Wednesday, May 12th, in Driftwood, Texas. At first I thought it was a joke, or just a crazy rumor, but after researching, I discovered that the Republican Speaker of the Texas House, Joe Straus, will be headlining the fundraiser for Democratic State Representative Patrick Rose!

One of the most frustrating things about this is that the Speaker of our House is failing to follow our state platform! On September 20, 2008, the Republican Party of Texas adopted this resolution:

“. . . that the Republican Party of Texas requests that every Republican public and party candidate and office holder re-frain from using his or her office, title, or name to endorse, sup-port, or campaign for a candidate of another party, or against the candidate of the Republican Party”

This obviously applies to Speaker Straus, whose weak justification has been that his predecessor, Tom Craddick (R – HD82), had done the same. Yes, Speaker Craddick had supported “Craddick Democrats”, or as they are now known — the mythical and ever elusive conservative Democrat.

Just kidding–there are a few Democrats who are fiscally conservative and cooperative with the Republican Party of Texas, but Patrick Rose is not one of these. In fact, Representative Rose received an F on the 2009 Fiscal Responsibility Index!

So it stands to reason that Mr. Rose’s Republican challenger would be a more suitable candidate for this office, and you think the Republican Speaker of the House would naturally support Mr. Rose’s challenger; after all, Speaker Straus’ job depends on a Republican majority.

Jason Isaac is the Republican who will be challenging Patrick Rose in November, and upon doing my own research I discovered that all three counties in HD45 went for John McCain in 2008. Obviously this district does not lean far to the left, and we should support a good conservative candidate like Jason Isaac who can reclaim this seat for the GOP. What is Joe Straus thinking?

I would have no problem with this event at all if Patrick Rose was running unopposed or if he was facing a leftist challenge from within his own party, but as we can see, that is clearly not the case.

Seeing as the Democratic Party has their eyes, and highest hopes, on winning in Texas, I hope that Speaker Straus will cancel this event and throw his support behind our party’s conservative candidate! With redistricting and potential budget shortfalls coming up, it is vitally important to our great state that we make sure that liberals from the national party do not have a chance to influence a potential Democratic majority in the Texas House of Representatives.